Setting Up Your Course
General Guidelines
Course Structure
Learning Experiences
Five Guidelines for Remote Instruction
1. Course Design
The basic principles of good course design are the same whether the class is taught in person or remotely. Check out the Center for Teaching and Learning’s pointers on effective course design.
2. Accessibility
Not all of your students will have regular or reliable access to the internet, but all of them should be able to participate, contribute, and access course materials. You will need to figure out how to make it possible for all of your students to be engaged.
3. Synchronicity
When you do have live class sessions, it should be on the days and times indicated in the class schedule in order to avoid conflicts with other classes and students’ schedules. Remember to make recordings of these class sessions available so that students can access them later if they cannot participate live.
4. Structure
Online students need to be able to do more of the course work on their own. A clear course structure will help a lot with this. Provide study guides for the readings, scaffold assignments, give examples of past work, and make due dates easy to spot.
5. Communication
You will need to contact your students consistently and frequently. Send out regularly scheduled emails and hold virtual office hours. Make it a point to return graded work promptly. Create a class blog or chat where students can correspond with you and each other. Make sure that those who cannot attend live-streamed classes can get a hold of you and share thoughts with the other students.
Possible Course Designs for Remote Instruction
Select an approach that will work well for you and your students.
Flipped Classroom
1) Instructor provides instructional input.<br />
2) Students “learn” by reading, watching, or doing outside of class.<br />
3) Class time is used for interactive discussion, practice, and questions.<br />
Read Full Story
2) Students “learn” by reading, watching, or doing outside of class.<br />
3) Class time is used for interactive discussion, practice, and questions.<br />
Read Full Story
Individual Learning Contracts
1)Students propose personalized learning plans.<br />
2)Instructor approves learning experiences, creative products, deadlines.<br />
3)Class time is used for collaboration with peers, interactive practice, & teacher consultation.<br /> Read Full Story
2)Instructor approves learning experiences, creative products, deadlines.<br />
3)Class time is used for collaboration with peers, interactive practice, & teacher consultation.<br /> Read Full Story
Learning Menus
1) Instructor generates a menu of possible learning activities.<br />
2) Students must select a certain number of activities from each category.<br />
3) Students complete activities outside of class.<br />
4) Class time is used for discussion, interactive practice, and questions.<br /> Read Full Story
2) Students must select a certain number of activities from each category.<br />
3) Students complete activities outside of class.<br />
4) Class time is used for discussion, interactive practice, and questions.<br /> Read Full Story
Project-based Learning
1) Students and instructor agree on a collaborative project.<br />
2) Students engage in sustained inquiry and ongoing critique, revision, and reflection.<br />
3) Students develop a tangible product.<br />
4) Students share their product with a public audience outside of the classroom.<br /> Read Full Story
2) Students engage in sustained inquiry and ongoing critique, revision, and reflection.<br />
3) Students develop a tangible product.<br />
4) Students share their product with a public audience outside of the classroom.<br /> Read Full Story
Eclectic Approach
You may also wish to create a customized approach to meet your students' needs by combining individual elements from several of the above approaches.
Read Full Story
Decide how to help students achieve course learning outcomes. A mix of creative and critical thinking activities works best.
Creative Engagement:
To engage students creatively, try asking students to create (with the free technology tools suggested):
- Advertisements
- Anthologies
- Audio recordings (Soundcloud or Vocaroo)
- Blog posts (Blogger or Wix)
- Book trailers (Biteable or Powtoon)
- Book covers (designed by the student)
- Comic strips (Make Beliefs Comix)
- Graphic organizer (Canva or Gliffy)
- How-to videos (Explain Everything)
- Infographics (Canva or Infogram)
- Magazines (Flipsnack or Issuu)
- Memes (ImgFlip)
- Mockumentaries
- Newscasts (Rocketium, WeVideo, BreakYourOwnNews)
- Newspapers (MakeMyNewspaper or The Fake News Generator)
- Plays
- Posters (Motivator or Movie Poster)
- Public service announcements (Biteable or Powtoon)
- Role immersion (see the book Minds on Fire : How Role-Immersion Games Transform College, available online in BYU Library)
- Storybook (Storybird or Little Bird Tales)
- Storyboards (Storyboard That)
- Text-to-speech (Acapela Box)
- Video shorts (Animoto, Biteable, Powtoon, or Vyond)
Critical Thinking:
To encourage critical thinking and reflection, try assigning:
- Analytic memos
- Annotations
- Bibliographies
- Blog posts (set up a blog for your course using BYU domains)
- Book reviews (provide students with models from your field and have them imitate the style)
- Case Studies (for cultural case studies, see the book Brazilians Working With Americans, for example–free online in BYU Library database)
- Comparative essays
- Critical commentaries
- Dialogue journals
- Discussion forums (these can be done on Learning Suite or on sites like Tricider)
- Essays
- Free writes
- Journals (Google docs, Penzu)
- Letters
- Literature reviews
- Pen pals
- Peer instruction
- Play scripts (students prepare and present content to peers)
- Poems
- Portfolios (Seesaw)
- Problem solving
- Presentations
- Research papers
- Social media posts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Edmodo, Fakebook)
- Translations